103. Change Your Desktop Picture  BEFORE YOU BEGIN 102 Change General Color and Appearance Settings
 SEE ALSO 88 Import Photos From a Digital Camera 104 Select a Screensaver 105 Customize a Folder Window
The Desktop picture, which in the Windows world is usually known as "wallpaper," is the largest and most obvious piece of customization available for your computeraside from putting fins or racing stripes on the case. Very few people leave their desktop looking the way it does when they boot up the computer for the first time. It's really easy to change the background to any picture you want and give your computer an immediate personal flavor. | 1. | Open the Desktop & Screen Saver Preferences Open the System Preferences application (under the Apple menu); click the Desktop & Screen Saver icon to open the Desktop & Screen Saver Preferences pane. The Desktop tab opens by default. 103. Change Your Desktop Picture  | | 2. | Choose a Picture Source Several items appear in the list at the left. Each item is a source for desktop pictures; Apple provides some bundled pictures, available in the Apple Images source. You can also choose from several solid colors, or from folders containing collections of picture files. The Nature, Plants, Black & White , and Abstract folders contain themed pictures bundled by Apple. You can also select your own Pictures folder. This folder, directly inside your Home folder, is where you should ordinarily place image files; choosing it as your picture source lets you select from any of the pictures you've collected. Subfolders of Pictures are not searched for valid images. At the bottom of the list are three or more picture sources that allow you to choose pictures from iPhoto. Library shows you all the pictures in your entire iPhoto Library, Last Roll lists only the images in the last "film roll" you imported into iPhoto, and Last 12 Months includes all pictures taken in the last year.  NOTE As you add more photo albums in iPhoto (see 89 Create an iPhoto Album or Slideshow ), each album is added to the list of sources you can use for selecting your desktop picture. | | 3. | Choose a Custom Picture Folder
You can also define a new custom picture source, a folder other than your Pictures folder. This is useful if you have a special folder where you keep your desktop pictures. Click Choose Folder and use the navigator window that pops up to find the folder you want to use. Click Choose after selecting any folder or an item inside it, and the folder will appear among the picture sources.
| | 4. | Set a New Desktop Picture
To set a new desktop picture, simply click the one you want to use in the pane on the right. Your computer's Desktop is immediately updated.
Alternatively, if the picture you want is not available in any of the folders or picture sources shown in the list, you can use any picture file anywhere in the system. Simply find the picture file you want to use in the Finder and drag it into the well (the recessed box showing the current Desktop picture) near the top of the Desktop & Screen Saver Preferences window.
| | 5. | Choose Tiling Options A drop-down list appears next to the well to let you select how an odd-shaped picture should be displayed. Select Fill screen to stretch the picture proportionally to fit the entire screen; select Stretch to fill screen to stretch it anamorphically (scaling each dimension by a different amount, as necessary to make the picture completely fill the screen in both dimensions). Select Center to place the picture in the middle of the screen, or Tile to place multiple copies of it all over the screen. NOTE Because the Center option potentially leaves empty space around the edges of the image if it's not exactly the right size to match your screen, a color picker icon appears next to the list if that option is chosen . Use the picker to define what color the leftover space should be. | | 6. | Set the Desktop Picture to Change Automatically
You can have Mac OS X automatically change to another picture in the selected source folder after a certain period of time. Select the Change picture check box and then select a time period (or an event, such as logging in or waking from sleep) from the drop-down list. Select the Random order check box to randomize how the picture is selected; if you don't check this box, the pictures are displayed in alphabetical order, using their filenames.
| | 7. | Download and Apply Custom Icon Sets
Because Mac OS X lets you set custom icons on files and folders (and even applications), customizing your system can involve collections of custom icons created as "themes." Many websites store massive collections of icon sets, from Star Trek to Tolkien to Tintin , and with hundreds of abstract design styles to choose from, you'll be able to find icon sets that match your personal tastes.
After you download an icon set, you can apply any icon inside it to an item in your system by using the standard method for copying icons: Open the Get Info windows for both the source and the target items, select and copy the icon from the source, and then select and paste it onto the icon in the target window. (See 17 Change an Icon for more detailed instructions.) You can do this for folders, hard disks, and any documents or applications in the system.
Many icon sets also allow you to set the default or "generic" icons for items such as folders and disks; to do this, however, involves changing the files within the system itself, and these changes will not survive a system upgrade.
If you're adventurous, you can try using any of the various third-party tools that are available for changing your generic iconsbut under the same caveats as with "theme" utilities, be aware of the risks to your system's stability.
| WEB RESOURCE http://interfacelift.com/icons-mac One of the most popular sources for custom Mac OS X icons on the Web, featuring hundreds of user - contributed icon sets, including the iDrives set by Wolfgang Bartelme shown in this task.
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